Week 1: The Human Journey: past present and future At no other time in history have recent past actions been so salient to present and future prospects. This topic introduces the importance of understanding our evolutionary origins and history as the dominant species on the planet, for understanding where we are now and where we are heading. Big History : is a field of historical study that examines history on a large scale across long time frames through a multi-disciplinary approachand gives a focus on the alteration and adaptations in the human experience. It arose as a distinct field in the late 1980s and is related to, but distinct from, world history,[2] as the field examines history from the beginning of time to the present day. Big history looks at the past on all time scales, from the Big Bang to modernity, seeking out common themes and patterns. It uses a multi-disciplinary approach from the latest findings, such as biology, astronomy, geology, climatology, prehistory, archeology, anthropology, cosmology, natural history, and population and environmental studies. Big History arose from a desire to go beyond the specialized and self-contained fields that emerged in the 20th century and grasp history as a whole, looking for common themes across the entire time scale of history. Conventionally, the study of history is typically limited to the written word and the systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; yet this only encompasses the past 5,000 years or so and leaves out the vast majority of history and all events in time, in relation to humanity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History
Big History by David Christian Offers a unique to view human history in the context of the many histories that surround it. From the expanse of cosmic history—13.7 billion years of it—starting with the big bang and traveling through time and space to the present moment.
At 13.7 billion years ago, the Universe suddenly appears, growing from the size of an atom to the size of a galaxy in a fraction of a second.
At 10 billion years ago, hydrogen atoms and helium atoms fuse at the center of a supernova to create the building blocks of the physical world.
At 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of matter collapses to produce a star—our Sun. Earth and the other planets in our solar system form out of the remaining bits of matter swirling around the new star.
At 67 million years ago, an asteroid collides with the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs, and leaves territory open for the rise of a minor order of organisms, the early mammals.
At 100,000–60,000 years ago, a species of hominids—bipedal ape-like creatures— begins to move out of its home territory in Africa and into the Asian continent.
Today, the descendants of those first hominines—homo sapiens—live in nearly every ecological niche. We fly through the air in planes, communicate instantaneously over immense distances, and develop theories about the creation of the Universe.
A Grand Synthesis of Knowledge: How the various scholarly discourses—cosmology, geology, anthropology, biology, history—fit together
Big History answers that question by weaving a single story from a variety of scholarly disciplines. Like traditional creation stories told by the world's great religions and mythologies, Big History provides a map of our place in space and time. But it does so using the insights and knowledge of modern science. Eight "Thresholds" :Christian organizes the history of creation into eight "thresholds." Each threshold marks a point in history when something truly new appeared and forms never before seen began to arise. However threshold moments are also times when complexity gets vulnerable and fragile. Starting with the first threshold, the creation of the Universe, Christian traces the developments of new, more complex entities, including: The creation of the first stars (threshold 2) The origin of life (threshold 5) The development of the human species (threshold 6) The moment of modernity (threshold 8). ++ Week 4: The emergence and evolution of Culture Culture in anthropology, the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society. Cultural differences distinguish societies from one another.Some fundamental elements of culture include language, beliefs, art, design, architecture, roles & functions, and norms. Cultural elements like language and art have greatly enriched the human conditions. Most of what we value as development evolved from some level of cultural expression to a higher level of essential functional role..(even though such a description is highly subjective). For example collective learning shaping our world through education and scientific development originated from oral tradition and discovery, oral tradition turned into written records, history and its synthesis with discovery eventually turned into education and science. Simple architectural cultural and functional expressions have resulted in megacities defined by skyscrapers, highways, houses and cathedrals. Every restaurant and clothing store is a manifestation of cultural expression combined with commercialism...a probably more recent form of cultural expression.
Personal perspective; Some cultural predispositions however have also caused conflicts. When groups of conflicting cultural beliefs meet sometimes the outcome is confict. It's conflict when a young lady from London walks down the streets of Tehran dressed in a mini skirt, it is also an area of conclict when a moslem woman walks the streets of Sydney veiled in a niqb. Cultural differences between East and West are sometimes reflected in the difference between a lifestyle valuing vertical hierarchy versus horizontal equality, conservatism versus liberal expression. Even popular culture today creates conflicts between people of different generations even within the same family. Today we see how our predesposition towards a cultural of mass consumerism is slowing down the global challenge towards sustainability. The culture of materialism is fertile ground for consumerism, just as it was fertile ground for the mass murders of millions under the communism.
Week 5: Historical methods What historical methods are useful for integrated human studies? This topic looks at historical methods and ways of representing history that can provide insights into current problems and issues.
Peter von Stackelberg’s Future Watch diagram is useful to integrated human studies. He presents Futures studies based on an analysis of past historical events, trends and patterns. His analysis views the past events from economic, technological, political and social perspectives, making it an interdisciplinary view. He uses time and event cycles as well archetypical changes as a bases to project future possibilities. He combines history, futures studies and multidisciplinary studies into one whereas other historical methods might simply not pay attention to the trends and cycles of events in history thereby missing the projection of such trends repeating in the present or future.
Macrohistory : the label ‘macrohistory’ is used for study of the past on very large scales. Macrohistory includes the scales of world history and historical sociology, as well as the even larger scales of ‘big history’, which embrace geological and even cosmological time. Macrohistory is interdisciplinary, because it crosses the boundaries between the humanities and the sciences. One of its main themes is what Jacques Revel has called ‘the play of scales’, the way in which our sense of significance, agency and causality can shift when we view the past on different scales and through different frames.
David Christian’s Plays of Scales is focused on time scale and subject/issue framing. He uses time-scales to focus on identity and relationships, e.g focusing on the individual level, the national level, global level, and cosmic level. He describes macrohistory as interdisciplinary, bringing together insights from many disciplines and integrating them. He raises a very good question about the role of humans in the grand scale of things. “Is human history a quite novel phenomenon? Are humans disrupting the complex feedback mechanisms evolved over millions of years by Gaia? Or has Gaia, perhaps, seen it all before?”
Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah argue that “a complete macrohistory is one that has linear, cyclical and transcendental dimensions. A complete macrohistory theorizes and describes why and how collectivities move through space and time. Galtung and Inayatullah argue that the real use of macrohistory is to not only find meaning in the past so as to create new possibilities of meaning for future, but to reduce suffering- macrohistory is essentially about understanding and changing the human condition.” (http://www.metafuture.org/Books/MacrohistoryandMacrohistorians.htm)
Week 6 : Legacy of the agricultural revolution
The World We Made from Ornstein and Ehrlich’s New World, New Mind (1989/2001 ) outlines the legacy of the agricultural revolution. Dated around 10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution was characterised by the shift of societal arrangement from hunter gatherers to farming settlements with the domestication of plants and animals. The agricultural revolution was a significant foundation of human civilization in the path that it has taken up until today. Several shifts occurred as a result:- - the increase in production of food to surplus levels - with surpluses people settled down permanently without moving place to place - product exchanges started as people traded other objects for the food from farmers. This resulted in skill specialization and occupation diversification - labor diversification resulted in improved skills, new professions, innovations, and new institutions like financial, trade, political, religious and educational institutions, also building and medical professions etc. - with these new innovations, especially better access to food and better health care, as well as safety in communities against predators, people could live longer and healthier lives, this together with the changed roles of women from gatherers to housewives, resulted in population explosion. -towns grew into cities, states, and empires needing more land and resources, this gave birth to wars of conquest. - wars encouraged innovation in weaponry and transportation of weapons and goods. This accererated development, (even until today many technological innovations have come from the military and defense industry). - all these developments have also resulted in environmental destruction, population explosion, and loss of biodiversity.
Did it greatly improve human wellbeing or are levels of wellbeing higher in hunter gatherer societies? Some aspect of human life improved with the advent of agriculture but other areas deteriorated slowly. Products & comfort + population increase and specialisation of labor resulted in a wider range of goods for usage e.g better & warmer clothes, blankets from cotton & wool, furniture, etc. this meant more comfortable living conditions - to provide these new goods and comforts families had to work harder & longer hours Food and labor + more people could have access to better food through crop farming and animal domestication - originally available food, fruits & berries and food originally gathered had to now be farmed. If hunting and gathering were not labor intensive this meant that such a transition to farming now involved hard labor of tilling the soil all thru the year….(almost like the biblical saga of Adam & Eve being kicked out a fruit garden and being cursed to till the soil and sweat all their lives.) Health +agriculture improved health through better nutrition, access to medicine and specialised medical professionals, and later advanced equipment. -high populations also increased the spread of diseases, and new ones were born out of the new stresses and wars. (Almost like today were advances in health care are also met with new diseases like cancer, heart diseases etc most of which are born or encouraged by “high living standards”.) Peace & security + initially agricultural settlements provided safety in larger structured groups from animal predators -however, the animal predator was replaced by human predators. Wars expanded with population and commerce, encouraged by the need for more resources, land and cheap labor. This eventually led to the discovery of more dangerous and effective weapons and the growing need for large standing armies constantly at war.
Week 7: Science, technology and industry Two hundred years ago, the scientific and industrial revolutions in the West began a series of technological changes and social, political and economic events that are still unfolding across the globe. In this unit, we investigate the causes of these revolutions and their consequences for human society, human individuals and the natural world, including the impact of technology on the violence between and within societies.
Our place in nature: past, present and future by Stephen Boyden
We are biological beings – products of nature and totally dependent on the processes of life, with us and around us, for our very existence. Life process underpin, permeate and make possible our whole social system and everything that happens within it. Keeping them healthy must, in the long run, be our first priority, because everything else depends on them. The dominant culture of our time has lost sight of this reality-with grave consequences for mankind and for the planet.
Historical timelines
Years ago
Developments
4000 million
The earliest forms of living organisms, single-celled bacteria, were in existence
2800 million
Micro-organisms capable of photosynthesis were in existence.
700-600 million
Multicellular organisms came into being
400 million
The colonisation of land by plants and animals began
250 million
The most severe of the mass extinctions in the history of life (more than 90 per cent of all species wiped out)
160 million
The emergence of the first flowering plants
65 million
A mass extinction bringing an end to many forms of life, including all the dinosaurs and flying reptiles
60-1 million
Great diversification among birds, mammals and flowering plants
1 million
Homo erectus in existence
180 000
Homo sapiens in existence
Biosensitive Futures : Exchanging information and ideas about the way forwardto an ecologically sustainable, healthy and equitable society If civilisation is to survive there will need to be big changes in the scale and nature of human activities on Earth. Unlike the previous major ecological transitions in human history – the deliberate use of fire, the introduction of farming, the formation of cities and the industrial revolution – this next transition will have to be deliberately planned.
We must design and look forward to a society which:
is based on understanding the story of life on Earth and the human place in nature
is in tune with, and sensitive to, the processes of life – that is, in tune with our own biology and with the living world around us
satisfies the health needs of all sections of the human population as well as those of the ecosystems of the biosphere (Figure 1).
We call this a biosensitive society.
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Biosensitivity
Biosensitivity is defined as: being in tune with, sensitive to and respectful of the processes of life. The essential characteristics of a biosensitive society Two essential characteristics of a truly biosensitive society will be: (1) promotion of physical and psychosocial health in all sections of the human population. (2) promotion of health in the ecosystems of the natural environment. All human activities (e.g. industry, transportation, farming) and all societal arrangements (e.g. economic system, government regulations) will be consistent with these two imperatives. The dominant culture will embrace, at its heart, an understanding of the human place in nature and a profound respect for the processes of life. Biosensitivity will be what matters most. The concept of biosensitivity is based on: (1) A scientific understanding of: The natural world and its evolutionary history, the evolution and biology of the human species, the human place in nature and the health needs and interdependencies of humans and the rest of the living world. Fundamental biological and ecological principles relevant to the health of humankind and the biosphere. (2) Appreciation that: We humans are living beings, products and part of the processes of life and totally dependent on these processes for our very existence. We are part of, not separate from, nature. Human wellbeing and survival depend on the health of the ecosystems of the biosphere (the biosensitivity triangle - Figure 1). There will be no effective transition to a biosensitive society until revolutionary changes come about in the worldview, priorities and assumptions of the dominant culture of our society. It will not come about until we have a biosensitive dominant culture.
Scientific facts and principlesThe building blocks of biounderstanding
Overviews
Specific themes
1 Our place in nature 2 Ecological issues in Australia 3 Health and civilisation 4 Armed conflict in biohistorical perspective
1. Ecological issues 1.1 The enhanced greenhouse effect 1.2 Thinning of the ozone layer 1.3 Persistent organic pollutants 1.4 Soil salinity 1.5 Sodic and acidic soils 1.6 Soil erosion 1.7 Disruption of nutrient cycles 1.8 Loss of biodiversity 1.9 Energy issues for a biosensitive society 1.10 Water issues in Australia 1.11 Forest issues (in preparation) 1.12 The oceans 1.13 Nuclear weapons 2. Human health issues 2.1 Climate change and human health 2.2 Diseases of modern civilisation 2.3 Quality of life 2.4 Infectious disease – past, present and future 2.5 Vaccination – past, present and future 3. General biological principles 3 .1 Photosynthesis 3.2 Nutrients in soil 3.3 Soil health 3.4 Diversity and uniformity in nature 3.5 Human evolution 3.6 The human population
Social change Suggested themes
Societal issues
Practicalities
Action by individuals and families Action by local communities The role of government The economic system in a biosensitive society The role of educational authorities Young people and the transition The business world and the transition Alternatives to consumerism The structure of the work force in a biosensitive society Human behavioural characteristics and necessary social change
Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases Activities aimed at reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere Alternatives to fossil fuels Retrofitting houses to reduce greenhouse emissions Designing new houses Biosensitive lifestyles Growing food locally Biosensitive transport systems Biosensitive cities Minimising waste Improving the health of soils in agricultural systems Reforestation The use of grey water
Week 8: The Anthropocene The Anthropocene is a recent and informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystems. The term was coined by ecologist Eugene Stoermer but has been widely popularized by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemistPaul Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on the Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological era for its lithosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene
Scientists contend that recent human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, have changed the planet to such an extent that we are entering what they call the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch. “Human activity has become the number one driver of most of the major changes in Earth's topography and climate, said Dr Andrew Gale of the University of Portsmouth. “You can’t have 6.5 billion people living on a planet the size of ours and exploiting every possible resource without creating huge changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment which will be reflected dramatically in our geological record of the planet.”
According to Takacs-Santa study, our transformational relationship with the biosphere has evolved through 6 transitions: the use of fire, language, agriculture, civilization, European conquests (the beginnings of modern globalisation) and the techno/scientific revolution with its associated use of fossil fuel energies.
Steffen suggests that growing awareness of human impacts through; rapid advances in understanding, information systems, and the growth of democratic political systems, may change things. It offers three paths: 1. business-as-usual – containing considerable risks 2. mitigation – recognition of the threat of human impacts anddealing with them 3. geo-engineering options – artificially inserting chemicals into the atmosphere
Personal perspective; The Anthropocene is an undeniable fact, human impact on the environment is clear and at an acceleration. It is probably impossible for humans to survive and build civilizations without having an impact on the environment and evidence of human impact can be seen throughout human history. However, the difference between ancient human interraction with the environment and post industrial impact is the level or scale of impact, and the rate of the impact. Humans today have become a dorminant force in tranforming the environment to levels of causing mass extinctions of other species. The most logical way to go is for humans to alter their impact on the environment from negative to positive, however the main tool for positive impacts is probably technology. Technology and innovation could transform the environment, however there is no guarantee that human attempts to fix the natural systems will succeed.
Week 9 : Scenarios for the Future In planning scenario building means projecting or imagining courses of events or future situations. Scenarios may refer to combinations of driving forces that describe, compare and contrast the possible or probable future context within which development or events will take place. Scenario building generally involves eight key steps. 1. Identifying focal issue or decision 2. Identifying driving forces 3. Ranking importance & uncertainty 4. Selecting scenario logics 5. Fleshing out the scenarios 6. Selecting indicators for monitoring 7. Assessing impacts for different scenarios 8. Evaluating alternative strategies
Driving forces - represent key variables and their trends in the macro environment that influence the focal issue. Driving forces can include changes in social, technological, environmental, economic and political factors, for example: - Demographic factors (population increase, in/out migration, changing age/gender structure, etc). - Laws and regulations (affecting land ownership, labour relations, environmental protection measures, etc). - Policies (subsidies, price controls or guarantees, import/export controls, quotas and tariffs, exchange rates, etc). - Markets and competition (size of or access to, local, national and international markets; growing competitiveness of producers in other regions, countries etc). - Technology (availability of new machinery, etc). - Institutions (new actors, influences, social organization). - Information (availability, communications technology). - Natural resources (water availability, groundwater levels, oil & minerals, land degradation, etc). Driving forces can be distinguished according to their predictability:
Trends (or “mega-trends”) are driving forces that are well established and will not change over the (planning) term, or are fairly certain to happen. These factors have implications for all future scenarios. For example: - Population growth - Consumption of a given commodity (staple food, source of energy) - Market liberalization (removal of subsidies, lowing of tariffs for goods).
Shocks or risks are unpredictable driving forces. However, they are crucial in the evolution of any problem situation. These uncertainties will determine the shape of particular scenarios. For example: - Changes in public opinion, consumer choice between different commodities - Risks such as floods, droughts - Changes in commodity or input prices
Personal perspective; I think scenario building is kind if hard when trying to pin down on the closet possible outcome. Social systems in which humans exist are dynamic and involve complexity, therefore many issues tend to morph, transform, interact with other issues and the environment, branching out and giving birth to new issues, and the new issues soon take lives of their own. Such mutability is not easy to predict, e.g. the future political scenario of a nation might be changed because of outside influences from other nations or unseen political issues who might rise up with new visions. This shows how scenarios are thrown off because of unforeseen changes.
Week 10 : Futures Studies According to Shail Inayatullah in ‘Microhistory & the Future’, Macrohistory is the study of the histories of social systems & social change focusing on overall patterns and stages. By examining history & theories of history, it seeks to understand the relationship between agency, structure & the transcendental; whether history is cyclical or linear or a spiral with aspects of both. Macrohistory is history on the large scale, telling the story of whole civilizations or of the entire world. Such histories are often, though not invariably, used to showcase theories of history. Truly universal theories of history try to explain why the human world has developed as it has. They also usually give some hint about how it will develop in the future. The book “Macrohistory and Macrohistorians." offers brief summaries, by a variety of contributors, of the ideas of 20 macrohistorians. The macrohistorians are from many periods and cultures, though most are modern and Western. The list includes:-
Ssu-Ma Ch'ien (most famous of Chinese historians, who wrote of dynastic cycles), St. Augustine of Hippo (sometimes called "the father of progress," his model ensured the Western view of time would be predominately linear rather than cyclical), Ibn Khaldun (Muslim historian with a generational model of dynastic change), Giambattista Vico (one of the great cyclical theorists of the West), Adam Smith (psychology, history and markets), George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (history as the development of consciousness), Auguste Comte (a three step model resulting in a secular-scientific final state), Karl Marx (history as the conflict of classes), Herbert Spencer (the most famous "Social Darwinist"), Vilfredo Pareto (mass psychology and the "circulation of elites"), Max Weber (the evolution of institutions from charismatic leadership to bureaucratic routine), Rudolf Steiner (a very long-term model of spiritual evolution), Oswald Spengler (the chief proponent of civilizations as mortal, organic entities), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (biological and human history progress to the perfect Omega Point), Pitrim Sorokin (the cyclical modelist who did the most original research), Arnold Toynbee (his "Study of History" sought to combine the linear and cyclical approaches, becoming the longest book of the 20th century in the process), Antonio Gramsci (a subtle Marxist), Prabhat Rainjar Sarkar (a relatively small-scale cyclical modelist, founder of the Ananda Marga movement), Riane Eisler (ecofeminism), Christopher B. Jones (a model incorporating the Gaia Hypothesis)
Personal perspective; My personal interest is mainly in spiral theories’ attempt to include both linear & cyclical aspects, having dimensions moving forward & dimensions that repeat. Many westerners tend to view time a linear, unlike some cultures who view time as cyclical like the Hindu concept of Yugas or Maya’s baktuns & tzolkin. I tend to view time as spiral with waves, with each repeated wave or cycle being different because of its position on the upward ladder. Inayatullah’s ‘Six pillars’ tend to be detailed, and has many interesting points. He talks about 6 Foundational futures concepts being –the used future, the disowned future, alternative futures, alignment, models of social change & uses of the future. Of interest to me is the question of a purchased used future, whether our image of or desired future is really ours or borrowed from someone else. I label this ‘futures menu’ where you only pick from the list, meaning one’s choices, and even desired future might be just confined to transcribed options.
Week11: Future of global civilisation
On the future of civilization, Bryan Appleyard writes, “Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things. . .
Almost daily, new evidence is emerging that progress can no longer be taken for granted, that a new Dark Age is lying in wait for ourselves and our children.”
Though cautious, I am optimistic about the global direction of civilization. We have several threats humanity faces today, some of which are a result of the nature of western civilization. Global problems, and environmental issues are propelling the fall of western civilization. Yet the decline of western civilization is happening against a global awakening in human consciousness, knowledge and hopefully responsibility. This is important because it guarantees that western hegemony is not replaced by a new Dark Age. The scenario of total chaos after the fall of the US is just on possible scenario, but other scenarios are likely to also play out, for instance the fall of US could give rise to strengthened and balanced regional bodies like the European Union, Asian Union, African Union and American Union with capacities to effectively police themselves and also promote peace and economic development. - Oftentimes competition accelerates polarity, the presence of democratic capitalism fueled the rise of communism & as well as its decline, the presence and dominance of the Judeo-Christian capitalist world fuels the growth of Islam. Probably Islamic fundamentalism would decline with the fall of western civilization; it’s a possible scenario. I think the global citizens movement will increasingly accelerate great transition, mainly because of the growing environmental problems, the global economic decline, frustration of with banks & global economic bodies, and the effective use of information technology.
8802 Learning Journal
Week 1: The Human Journey: past present and future
At no other time in history have recent past actions been so salient to present and future prospects. This topic introduces the importance of understanding our evolutionary origins and history as the dominant species on the planet, for understanding where we are now and where we are heading.
Big History : is a field of historical study that examines history on a large scale across long time frames through a multi-disciplinary approachand gives a focus on the alteration and adaptations in the human experience. It arose as a distinct field in the late 1980s and is related to, but distinct from, world history,[2] as the field examines history from the beginning of time to the present day.
Big history looks at the past on all time scales, from the Big Bang to modernity, seeking out common themes and patterns. It uses a multi-disciplinary approach from the latest findings, such as biology, astronomy, geology, climatology, prehistory, archeology, anthropology, cosmology, natural history, and population and environmental studies. Big History arose from a desire to go beyond the specialized and self-contained fields that emerged in the 20th century and grasp history as a whole, looking for common themes across the entire time scale of history. Conventionally, the study of history is typically limited to the written word and the systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; yet this only encompasses the past 5,000 years or so and leaves out the vast majority of history and all events in time, in relation to humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History
Big History by David Christian
Offers a unique to view human history in the context of the many histories that surround it. From the expanse of cosmic history—13.7 billion years of it—starting with the big bang and traveling through time and space to the present moment.
A Grand Synthesis of Knowledge: How the various scholarly discourses—cosmology, geology, anthropology, biology, history—fit together
Big History answers that question by weaving a single story from a variety of scholarly disciplines. Like traditional creation stories told by the world's great religions and mythologies, Big History provides a map of our place in space and time. But it does so using the insights and knowledge of modern science.Eight "Thresholds" :Christian organizes the history of creation into eight "thresholds." Each threshold marks a point in history when something truly new appeared and forms never before seen began to arise. However threshold moments are also times when complexity gets vulnerable and fragile.
Starting with the first threshold, the creation of the Universe, Christian traces the developments of new, more complex entities, including:
The creation of the first stars (threshold 2)
The origin of life (threshold 5)
The development of the human species (threshold 6)
The moment of modernity (threshold 8).
++
Week 4: The emergence and evolution of Culture
Culture in anthropology, the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society. Cultural differences distinguish societies from one another.Some fundamental elements of culture include language, beliefs, art, design, architecture, roles & functions, and norms. Cultural elements like language and art have greatly enriched the human conditions. Most of what we value as development evolved from some level of cultural expression to a higher level of essential functional role..(even though such a description is highly subjective). For example collective learning shaping our world through education and scientific development originated from oral tradition and discovery, oral tradition turned into written records, history and its synthesis with discovery eventually turned into education and science. Simple architectural cultural and functional expressions have resulted in megacities defined by skyscrapers, highways, houses and cathedrals. Every restaurant and clothing store is a manifestation of cultural expression combined with commercialism...a probably more recent form of cultural expression.
Personal perspective;
Some cultural predispositions however have also caused conflicts. When groups of conflicting cultural beliefs meet sometimes the outcome is confict. It's conflict when a young lady from London walks down the streets of Tehran dressed in a mini skirt, it is also an area of conclict when a moslem woman walks the streets of Sydney veiled in a niqb. Cultural differences between East and West are sometimes reflected in the difference between a lifestyle valuing vertical hierarchy versus horizontal equality, conservatism versus liberal expression. Even popular culture today creates conflicts between people of different generations even within the same family. Today we see how our predesposition towards a cultural of mass consumerism is slowing down the global challenge towards sustainability. The culture of materialism is fertile ground for consumerism, just as it was fertile ground for the mass murders of millions under the communism.
Week 5: Historical methods
What historical methods are useful for integrated human studies? This topic looks at historical methods and ways of representing history that can provide insights into current problems and issues.
Peter von Stackelberg’s Future Watch diagram is useful to integrated human studies. He presents Futures studies based on an analysis of past historical events, trends and patterns. His analysis views the past events from economic, technological, political and social perspectives, making it an interdisciplinary view. He uses time and event cycles as well archetypical changes as a bases to project future possibilities. He combines history, futures studies and multidisciplinary studies into one whereas other historical methods might simply not pay attention to the trends and cycles of events in history thereby missing the projection of such trends repeating in the present or future.
Macrohistory : the label ‘macrohistory’ is used for study of the past on very large scales. Macrohistory includes the scales of world history and historical sociology, as well as the even larger scales of ‘big history’, which embrace geological and even cosmological time. Macrohistory is interdisciplinary, because it crosses the boundaries between the humanities and the sciences. One of its main themes is what Jacques Revel has called ‘the play of scales’, the way in which our sense of significance, agency and causality can shift when we view the past on different scales and through different frames.
David Christian’s Plays of Scales is focused on time scale and subject/issue framing. He uses time-scales to focus on identity and relationships, e.g focusing on the individual level, the national level, global level, and cosmic level. He describes macrohistory as interdisciplinary, bringing together insights from many disciplines and integrating them. He raises a very good question about the role of humans in the grand scale of things. “Is human history a quite novel phenomenon? Are humans disrupting the complex feedback mechanisms evolved over millions of years by Gaia? Or has Gaia, perhaps, seen it all before?”
Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah argue that “a complete macrohistory is one that has linear, cyclical and transcendental dimensions. A complete macrohistory theorizes and describes why and how collectivities move through space and time. Galtung and Inayatullah argue that the real use of macrohistory is to not only find meaning in the past so as to create new possibilities of meaning for future, but to reduce suffering- macrohistory is essentially about understanding and changing the human condition.” (http://www.metafuture.org/Books/MacrohistoryandMacrohistorians.htm)
Week 6 : Legacy of the agricultural revolution
The World We Made from Ornstein and Ehrlich’s New World, New Mind (1989/2001 ) outlines the legacy of the agricultural revolution. Dated around 10,000 years ago the agricultural revolution was characterised by the shift of societal arrangement from hunter gatherers to farming settlements with the domestication of plants and animals.
The agricultural revolution was a significant foundation of human civilization in the path that it has taken up until today.
Several shifts occurred as a result:-
- the increase in production of food to surplus levels
- with surpluses people settled down permanently without moving place to place
- product exchanges started as people traded other objects for the food from farmers. This resulted in skill specialization and occupation diversification
- labor diversification resulted in improved skills, new professions, innovations, and new institutions like financial, trade, political, religious and educational institutions, also building and medical professions etc.
- with these new innovations, especially better access to food and better health care, as well as safety in communities against predators, people could live longer and healthier lives, this together with the changed roles of women from gatherers to housewives, resulted in population explosion.
-towns grew into cities, states, and empires needing more land and resources, this gave birth to wars of conquest.
- wars encouraged innovation in weaponry and transportation of weapons and goods. This accererated development, (even until today many technological innovations have come from the military and defense industry).
- all these developments have also resulted in environmental destruction, population explosion, and loss of biodiversity.
Did it greatly improve human wellbeing or are levels of wellbeing higher in hunter gatherer societies?
Some aspect of human life improved with the advent of agriculture but other areas deteriorated slowly.
Products & comfort
+ population increase and specialisation of labor resulted in a wider range of goods for usage e.g better & warmer clothes, blankets from cotton & wool, furniture, etc. this meant more comfortable living conditions
- to provide these new goods and comforts families had to work harder & longer hours
Food and labor
+ more people could have access to better food through crop farming and animal domestication
- originally available food, fruits & berries and food originally gathered had to now be farmed. If hunting and gathering were not labor intensive this meant that such a transition to farming now involved hard labor of tilling the soil all thru the year….(almost like the biblical saga of Adam & Eve being kicked out a fruit garden and being cursed to till the soil and sweat all their lives.)
Health
+agriculture improved health through better nutrition, access to medicine and specialised medical professionals, and later advanced equipment.
-high populations also increased the spread of diseases, and new ones were born out of the new stresses and wars. (Almost like today were advances in health care are also met with new diseases like cancer, heart diseases etc most of which are born or encouraged by “high living standards”.)
Peace & security
+ initially agricultural settlements provided safety in larger structured groups from animal predators
-however, the animal predator was replaced by human predators. Wars expanded with population and commerce, encouraged by the need for more resources, land and cheap labor. This eventually led to the discovery of more dangerous and effective weapons and the growing need for large standing armies constantly at war.
Week 7: Science, technology and industry
Two hundred years ago, the scientific and industrial revolutions in the West began a series of technological changes and social, political and economic events that are still unfolding across the globe. In this unit, we investigate the causes of these revolutions and their consequences for human society, human individuals and the natural world, including the impact of technology on the violence between and within societies.
Our place in nature: past, present and future by Stephen Boyden
We are biological beings – products of nature and totally dependent on the processes of life, with us and around us, for our very existence. Life process underpin, permeate and make possible our whole social system and everything that happens within it. Keeping them healthy must, in the long run, be our first priority, because everything else depends on them.The dominant culture of our time has lost sight of this reality-with grave consequences for mankind and for the planet.
Historical timelines
If civilisation is to survive there will need to be big changes in the scale and nature of human activities on Earth. Unlike the previous major ecological transitions in human history – the deliberate use of fire, the introduction of farming, the formation of cities and the industrial revolution – this next transition will have to be deliberately planned.
We must design and look forward to a society which:
We call this a biosensitive society.
Biosensitivity
Biosensitivity is defined as: being in tune with, sensitive to and respectful of the processes of life.
The essential characteristics of a biosensitive society
Two essential characteristics of a truly biosensitive society will be:
(1) promotion of physical and psychosocial health in all sections of the human population.
(2) promotion of health in the ecosystems of the natural environment.
All human activities (e.g. industry, transportation, farming) and all societal arrangements (e.g. economic system, government regulations) will be consistent with these two imperatives.
The dominant culture will embrace, at its heart, an understanding of the human place in nature and a profound respect for the processes of life. Biosensitivity will be what matters most.
The concept of biosensitivity is based on:
(1) A scientific understanding of:
The natural world and its evolutionary history, the evolution and biology of the human species, the human place in nature and the health needs and interdependencies of humans and the rest of the living world.
Fundamental biological and ecological principles relevant to the health of humankind and the biosphere.
(2) Appreciation that:
We humans are living beings, products and part of the processes of life and totally dependent on these processes for our very existence. We are part of, not separate from, nature.
Human wellbeing and survival depend on the health of the ecosystems of the biosphere (the biosensitivity triangle - Figure 1).
There will be no effective transition to a biosensitive society until revolutionary changes come about in the worldview, priorities and assumptions of the dominant culture of our society. It will not come about until we have a biosensitive dominant culture.
Scientific facts and principlesThe building blocks of biounderstanding
2 Ecological issues in Australia
3 Health and civilisation
4 Armed conflict in biohistorical perspective
1.1 The enhanced greenhouse effect
1.2 Thinning of the ozone layer
1.3 Persistent organic pollutants
1.4 Soil salinity
1.5 Sodic and acidic soils
1.6 Soil erosion
1.7 Disruption of nutrient cycles
1.8 Loss of biodiversity
1.9 Energy issues for a biosensitive society
1.10 Water issues in Australia
1.11 Forest issues (in preparation)
1.12 The oceans
1.13 Nuclear weapons
2. Human health issues
2.1 Climate change and human health
2.2 Diseases of modern civilisation
2.3 Quality of life
2.4 Infectious disease – past, present and future
2.5 Vaccination – past, present and future
3. General biological principles 3
.1 Photosynthesis
3.2 Nutrients in soil
3.3 Soil health
3.4 Diversity and uniformity in nature
3.5 Human evolution
3.6 The human population
Action by local communities
The role of government
The economic system in a biosensitive society
The role of educational authorities
Young people and the transition
The business world and the transition
Alternatives to consumerism
The structure of the work force in a biosensitive society
Human behavioural characteristics and necessary social change
Activities aimed at reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
Alternatives to fossil fuels
Retrofitting houses to reduce greenhouse emissions
Designing new houses
Biosensitive lifestyles
Growing food locally
Biosensitive transport systems
Biosensitive cities
Minimising waste
Improving the health of soils in agricultural systems
Reforestation
The use of grey water
Week 8: The Anthropocene
The Anthropocene is a recent and informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystems. The term was coined by ecologist Eugene Stoermer but has been widely popularized by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on the Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological era for its lithosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene
Scientists contend that recent human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, have changed the planet to such an extent that we are entering what they call the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch.
“Human activity has become the number one driver of most of the major changes in Earth's topography and climate, said Dr Andrew Gale of the University of Portsmouth. “You can’t have 6.5 billion people living on a planet the size of ours and exploiting every possible resource without creating huge changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment which will be reflected dramatically in our geological record of the planet.”
According to Takacs-Santa study, our transformational relationship with the biosphere has evolved through 6 transitions: the use of fire, language, agriculture, civilization, European conquests (the beginnings of modern globalisation) and the techno/scientific revolution with its associated use of fossil fuel energies.
Steffen suggests that growing awareness of human impacts through; rapid advances in understanding, information systems, and the growth of democratic political systems, may change things. It offers three paths:
1. business-as-usual – containing considerable risks
2. mitigation – recognition of the threat of human impacts anddealing with them
3. geo-engineering options – artificially inserting chemicals into the atmosphere
Personal perspective;
The Anthropocene is an undeniable fact, human impact on the environment is clear and at an acceleration. It is probably impossible for humans to survive and build civilizations without having an impact on the environment and evidence of human impact can be seen throughout human history. However, the difference between ancient human interraction with the environment and post industrial impact is the level or scale of impact, and the rate of the impact. Humans today have become a dorminant force in tranforming the environment to levels of causing mass extinctions of other species.
The most logical way to go is for humans to alter their impact on the environment from negative to positive, however the main tool for positive impacts is probably technology. Technology and innovation could transform the environment, however there is no guarantee that human attempts to fix the natural systems will succeed.
Week 9 : Scenarios for the Future
In planning scenario building means projecting or imagining courses of events or future situations. Scenarios may refer to combinations of driving forces that describe, compare and contrast the possible or probable future context within which development or events will take place.
Scenario building generally involves eight key steps.
1. Identifying focal issue or decision
2. Identifying driving forces
3. Ranking importance & uncertainty
4. Selecting scenario logics
5. Fleshing out the scenarios
6. Selecting indicators for monitoring
7. Assessing impacts for different scenarios
8. Evaluating alternative strategies
Driving forces - represent key variables and their trends in the macro environment that influence the focal issue. Driving forces can include changes in social, technological, environmental, economic and political factors, for example:
- Demographic factors (population increase, in/out migration, changing age/gender
structure, etc).
- Laws and regulations (affecting land ownership, labour relations, environmental
protection measures, etc).
- Policies (subsidies, price controls or guarantees, import/export controls, quotas
and tariffs, exchange rates, etc).
- Markets and competition (size of or access to, local, national and international
markets; growing competitiveness of producers in other regions, countries etc).
- Technology (availability of new machinery, etc).
- Institutions (new actors, influences, social organization).
- Information (availability, communications technology).
- Natural resources (water availability, groundwater levels, oil & minerals, land
degradation, etc).
Driving forces can be distinguished according to their predictability:
Trends (or “mega-trends”) are driving forces that are well established and will not
change over the (planning) term, or are fairly certain to happen. These factors
have implications for all future scenarios. For example:
- Population growth
- Consumption of a given commodity (staple food, source of energy)
- Market liberalization (removal of subsidies, lowing of tariffs for goods).
Shocks or risks are unpredictable driving forces. However, they are crucial in the evolution of any problem situation. These uncertainties will determine the shape of particular scenarios. For example:
- Changes in public opinion, consumer choice between different commodities
- Risks such as floods, droughts
- Changes in commodity or input prices
Personal perspective;
I think scenario building is kind if hard when trying to pin down on the closet possible outcome. Social systems in which humans exist are dynamic and involve complexity, therefore many issues tend to morph, transform, interact with other issues and the environment, branching out and giving birth to new issues, and the new issues soon take lives of their own. Such mutability is not easy to predict, e.g. the future political scenario of a nation might be changed because of outside influences from other nations or unseen political issues who might rise up with new visions.
This shows how scenarios are thrown off because of unforeseen changes.
Week 10 : Futures Studies
According to Shail Inayatullah in ‘Microhistory & the Future’, Macrohistory is the study of the histories of social systems & social change focusing on overall patterns and stages. By examining history & theories of history, it seeks to understand the relationship between agency, structure & the transcendental; whether history is cyclical or linear or a spiral with aspects of both.
Macrohistory is history on the large scale, telling the story of whole civilizations or of the entire world. Such histories are often, though not invariably, used to showcase theories of history. Truly universal theories of history try to explain why the human world has developed as it has. They also usually give some hint about how it will develop in the future.
The book “Macrohistory and Macrohistorians." offers brief summaries, by a variety of contributors, of the ideas of 20 macrohistorians. The macrohistorians are from many periods and cultures, though most are modern and Western.
The list includes:-
Ssu-Ma Ch'ien (most famous of Chinese historians, who wrote of dynastic cycles),
St. Augustine of Hippo (sometimes called "the father of progress," his model ensured the Western view of time would be predominately linear rather than cyclical),
Ibn Khaldun (Muslim historian with a generational model of dynastic change),
Giambattista Vico (one of the great cyclical theorists of the West),
Adam Smith (psychology, history and markets),
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (history as the development of consciousness),
Auguste Comte (a three step model resulting in a secular-scientific final state),
Karl Marx (history as the conflict of classes),
Herbert Spencer (the most famous "Social Darwinist"),
Vilfredo Pareto (mass psychology and the "circulation of elites"),
Max Weber (the evolution of institutions from charismatic leadership to bureaucratic routine),
Rudolf Steiner (a very long-term model of spiritual evolution),
Oswald Spengler (the chief proponent of civilizations as mortal, organic entities),
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (biological and human history progress to the perfect Omega Point),
Pitrim Sorokin (the cyclical modelist who did the most original research),
Arnold Toynbee (his "Study of History" sought to combine the linear and cyclical approaches, becoming the longest book of the 20th century in the process),
Antonio Gramsci (a subtle Marxist),
Prabhat Rainjar Sarkar (a relatively small-scale cyclical modelist, founder of the Ananda Marga movement),
Riane Eisler (ecofeminism),
Christopher B. Jones (a model incorporating the Gaia Hypothesis)
Personal perspective;
My personal interest is mainly in spiral theories’ attempt to include both linear & cyclical aspects, having dimensions moving forward & dimensions that repeat.
Many westerners tend to view time a linear, unlike some cultures who view time as cyclical like the Hindu concept of Yugas or Maya’s baktuns & tzolkin.
I tend to view time as spiral with waves, with each repeated wave or cycle being different because of its position on the upward ladder.
Inayatullah’s ‘Six pillars’ tend to be detailed, and has many interesting points. He talks about 6 Foundational futures concepts being –the used future, the disowned future, alternative futures, alignment, models of social change & uses of the future.
Of interest to me is the question of a purchased used future, whether our image of or desired future is really ours or borrowed from someone else. I label this ‘futures menu’ where you only pick from the list, meaning one’s choices, and even desired future might be just confined to transcribed options.
Week11: Future of global civilisation
On the future of civilization, Bryan Appleyard writes, “Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things. . .
Almost daily, new evidence is emerging that progress can no longer be taken for granted, that a new Dark Age is lying in wait for ourselves and our children.”
Though cautious, I am optimistic about the global direction of civilization. We have several threats humanity faces today, some of which are a result of the nature of western civilization. Global problems, and environmental issues are propelling the fall of western civilization. Yet the decline of western civilization is happening against a global awakening in human consciousness, knowledge and hopefully responsibility. This is important because it guarantees that western hegemony is not replaced by a new Dark Age.
The scenario of total chaos after the fall of the US is just on possible scenario, but other scenarios are likely to also play out, for instance the fall of US could give rise to strengthened and balanced regional bodies like the European Union, Asian Union, African Union and American Union with capacities to effectively police themselves and also promote peace and economic development.
- Oftentimes competition accelerates polarity, the presence of democratic capitalism fueled the rise of communism & as well as its decline, the presence and dominance of the Judeo-Christian capitalist world fuels the growth of Islam. Probably Islamic fundamentalism would decline with the fall of western civilization; it’s a possible scenario.
I think the global citizens movement will increasingly accelerate great transition, mainly because of the growing environmental problems, the global economic decline, frustration of with banks & global economic bodies, and the effective use of information technology.